A bird soared through the air, on its way back to its twig and pine needle nest. A faint whistling noise could be heard through the mild wind. It grew noisier as the blue bird neared the majestic city of clouds that filled the sky. The bird was used to it being noisier around the city, which is why it nested so far away, but this was a different kind of noise. It was higher, more like a fellow bird’s call. Not a sound the bird was familiar with hearing from the city.
The scream, as the bird was now calling it, was very quickly getting louder. One second it was no more than a howl riding the wind, the next it was an ear piercing scream that ripped through the air.
The bird looked up at the weird little settlement above, only to see a white pony barreling directly at where it now flew. The bird screeched in panic and barely dodged the strange occurrence as the pony plummeted to the earth below. The bird sighed in relief that it had managed to escape unharmed from what was surely a one-time happening.
The bird had stopped a few feet away for a moment to catch its breath after such an astounding event when three more ponies bolted down after the mysterious white pony. Okay, now a two-time event. After having rested for, in its opinion, a good long while, the bird continued its journey back to its family.
It had barely made it more than a few feet away when a much deeper noise filled the air, although it stopped a few seconds later. Still, it made the bird look around again to see what all of the commotion was. It looked up and saw a blue blur cutting through the air much faster than the four ponies before it. In fact, much faster than anything the bird had ever seen before. It hovered there and watched in utter awe as the pony continued to gain speed.
The bird remembered its dreams from when it was only a fledgling. It had aspirations of being very fast, but all of its elders had hated the idea. They forced it to have a normal life, raise a normal family. It had grown used to the idea of a normal life, but it still sometimes sat in its nest, staring at the sky, remembering the dreams of a forgotten future.
The pony was flying at truly blistering speeds. Speeds so fast that they produced something even stranger than anything the bird had seen that day. As it passed directly by the bird, a mind-mangling explosion of color, noise, and light filled the small bird’s senses. The shockwave of which propelled it far, far away. In fact, it happened to land only a short distance from its nest.
At the same time, up in the Cloudsdale stadium, a cold chill ran down a purple pony’s spine.
Twilight Sparkle suddenly jumped back, catching herself with her forelegs. Her eyes were as wide as the sun that shone down upon them. She kicked herself back to the wall and leaned against it. Twilight sat on the cloud breathing very heavily. Her stomach churned. That... That explosion. That sonic rainboom, as it must have been, seemed incredibly familiar to Twilight. She closed her eyes and brought her hooves to her temples as she racked her brain for the answer. No matter how deep she looked, an explanation seemed out of reach.
Twilight’s thoughts were thrown back to the competition as the crowd went insane. She noticed a rainbow forming over the stadium. At the front of the rainbow flew Rainbow Dash, and she had Rarity and the Wonderbolts in her hooves. Twilight tried to contain herself as the excitement coursed through her veins. Her heart pounded against her chest. And, finally, she lost control for a moment.
“Yes!” Twilight yelled, her voice cracking loudly and her arms waving manically. As she sat there, watching Rainbow Dash fly triumphantly over the stadium, a strange, different kind of joy filled her. It was warm, almost like a fire had lit inside her body. It felt good.
Rainbow Dash flew up through the center of the stadium and handed off the ponies to other pegasi. She had a short conversation with Rarity before they flew her away. Rainbow Dash stared in awe at the crowd as they cheered at the top of their lungs. Streamers and confetti rained down from above.
Princess Celestia and two royal guards flew down to the bottom of the stadium and landed next to Rainbow Dash. Celestia talked to Rainbow for a moment, whose look got incredibly more excited, then turned to face the crowd.
“for her incredible act of bravery, and her spectacular sonic rainboom, I'm presenting the grand prize for best young flyer to this year's winner, Miss Rainbow Dash!” The whole stadium went berserk. Twilight yelled and cheered. Her friends did the same, and so did the rest of the stadium. The warm, fire-like feeling inside Twilight grew ever stronger.
Twilight soon found herself and her friends going down to congratulate Dash, the smile never leaving Twilight’s face. When they approached, Rainbow was standing in awe facing the crowd. She looked truly happy, Twilight thought.
The stadium was bursting with the excited noises of a satisfied crowd. As Twilight and her friends approached Rainbow Dash, Rainbow turned around and noticed them. As she walked over, her wings did a small flutter and she let out a short giggle of excitement.
“Hey, guys!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash. “Hey, Twilight,” she added, slightly quieter.
“Oh my gosh! Congratulations!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie as her face grew a huge grin and her eyes lit up with giddy excitement. “You were all like, whoosh! Zam! Kaboo–”
“You did a mighty fine job out there, Dash!” interrupted Applejack, patting Rainbow on the shoulder.
Fluttershy stood there with an insecure smile on her face. “Oh, um, hi, Rainbow. You really did look good out there.”
“Thanks, guys! But I really couldn’t have done it without all of you,” said Rainbow Dash. “And I have Twilight to thank for getting you all up here,” she added, walking over to Twilight, whose heart began beating harder. Rainbow leaned in closer. “And thanks for earlier, you know?” she added in an undertone.
“Y-yeah, you’re welcome.” The smile faded from Rainbow’s face for a moment and a pained look overcame her eyes. She closed her eyes and shook her head lightly, soon regaining her confident look. “Are you all right?” asked Twilight.
“Oh, yeah, I’m fine. Hey, let’s go see Rarity, okay? I want to show you around Cloudsdale some more. Oh, and you can do your spell to let her walk on clouds again, right?” Rainbow Dash raised her eyebrow expectantly.
“Oh, yeah, of course.”
“Cool, great, thanks.” Rainbow Dash started off towards Twilight’s balloon, leaving Twilight alone and without witnesses to see her face flush slightly. Twilight watched Rainbow walk away, with her toned body and her unkempt mane splayed beautifully against her cool blue coat... What was she thinking about? This was not how you think of a friend. Twilight shook her head and pushed the thoughts away.
Twilight looked up and noticed that she had fallen behind the other ponies. She hurried ahead and caught up to them. Rainbow Dash didn’t seem to have noticed and was already busy recounting her tale.
Twilight smiled and listened as Rainbow told her story, seemingly adding overly-dramatic parts wherever she felt like it. She changed it so that Rarity was mere inches from the ground when Rainbow Dash had caught her and that she came within millimeters of hitting an innocent bird. She seemed to have recovered, or at least been distracted, from whatever was bothering her. Although, hearing the story brought Twilight back to her dilemma. Where had she seen a sonic rainboom before?
Twilight came to a conclusion on how she could find out just as they approached the tall balloon resting gently upon the soft white cloud.
Rarity was sitting on her haunches with her eyes closed. She was breathing very softly. Her ears perked up at the sound of Rainbow Dash’s voice, and she opened her eyes. “Oh, hello there, girls. I still can’t thank you enough for saving my life, Rainbow Dash.” Rarity was still in that ridiculous getup that she had been wearing.
Rainbow Dash made a curious sort of face. She smiled and furrowed her brows a little. Soon, she walked over to Rarity and patted her on the shoulder and said “Hey, it’s all right. I’d do it any day for anypony.” After, she turned towards Twilight and raised an eyebrow.
Twilight realized that Rainbow Dash wanted her to perform the spell and closed her eyes to concentrate.
Rarity’s eyes grew ever-so-slightly wider. “Oh, dear, I really don’t think that that is necessary. I’m sorry, but I am not feeling myself after that... incident. I’d really much rather go home and have a nice and relaxing cup of tea.”
Rainbow Dash stood up with her forelegs on the side of the basket and her wings flapping lightly. “What? I really wanted to show you guys around some more. Plus, how are we going to get back? Twilight is the only one that can fly that balloon.”
Twilight’s ears perked slightly at the mention of her name. “Oh, don’t worry. I’m feeling a little tired myself, so I can bring her back and then go and take a quick nap.”
Rainbow Dash walked over to Twilight and smiled warmly. “Hey, I understand. As long as you’ll be back later. I don’t think I could bring the rest of these ponies back alone.” Twilight smiled and nodded in thanks, then went over and climbed into the balloon.
Soon, they were on their way. They flew over the vast rolling hills and under the bright blue sky. One time, Twilight smiled as the breeze picked up a little and ruffled her mane slightly. It made her feel bright and fresh again to be at such a low altitude. The happy feeling continued all the way until they reached Rarity’s boutique.
Rarity stepped out of the balloon and made a motion to kiss the ground, but a disgusted look came over her face as she looked at how gross the dirt was. She raised her chin and walked to the door. The fashion diva turned around. “Would you like to come in for some tea, dear?”
Twilight laughed awkwardly and her ears lowered a bit. “Oh, I couldn’t. I’m really tired. Maybe some other time.”
Rarity opened her door. “Oh, that’s quite all right, darling. I completely understand. Maybe some other time indeed. Tah tah!” Rarity stepped over her threshold and closed the door behind her. It creaked to a shut as Twilight took off once again.
Twilight was soon greeted by the huge tree that she called home. A cool breeze ruffled its leaves, but aside from that, it was silent.
Twilight parked her balloon just outside and went in. “Spike!” she called, going towards the stairs to her room.
Spike came bustling out of the kitchen with an eyebrow raised. “Back so soon? I figured you would have been gone all day.”
“No time to explain, just follow,” said Twilight, starting off up the stairs. She was soon in her room by her personal bookcase with Spike trailing behind. “I need you to get me all of my journals from around the time I hatched you.”
Spike scratched his head. “Why do you need those?”
“I just... I-I need to know something.” Spike grumbled and went off in search of the books. Twilight sat down on her bed and waited patiently. After a little bit, Spike came by with a frustrated look on his face. He grabbed a ladder and went back to his search. Spike came back a couple minutes later with a good sized pile of books and put them down.
Spike backed up. “There,” he said, presenting the pile with his arms. “Now, will you tell me why you wanted them?”
Twilight levitated the top one over to herself and opened it. “I’ll explain later. For now, help me look for anything that would describe a sonic rainboom.”
Spike scratched his head again. “Isn’t that what Rainbow Dash was going to do today? Didn’t it work?”
Twilight continued to flip through the pages of her journal. “Yes, and she did do it. It looked amazing. The only problem is, is that I feel like I’ve seen it before. It’s the weirdest thing. I don’t remember when, but I have the utmost confidence that I have. The only thing I have to go by is that it feels like it’s from around the time when I was still a young filly.”
And so Twilight and Spike searched. Seconds turned to minutes, which in turn became hours. They looked through almost every book that Spike had gotten out. From the days that Twilight was a young filly to the days that Twilight was still getting used to handling raising a baby dragon. The pair looked in no particular order of book, one would be from near the beginning and the next near the end.
Spike threw the book he was currently in down and stood up. “I’m gonna go get a drink.” Spike trudged to the stairs and Twilight swore that she heard him saying something about this being a waste of time.
Twilight flipped absent mindedly through the book she was currently reading. Her mind was on autopilot, scanning for words that would be of any use in her search. Twilight reached the end of her book and reached for another, but her hoof fell upon the hard ground.
Twilight was out of books and she still hadn’t found what she was looking for. She let out a frustrated sigh and looked around, and she came upon the book that Spike had left out. Not ready to give up quite yet, Twilight grabbed the book and began flipping through it.
She knew she had seen it before, just not when. Twilight could picture it in her mind’s eye, but the rest of the details came up foggy. She knew it wasn’t just deja vu because her memory was from below it, not above, and she knew she was young because she remembered older ponies standing next to her, although she couldn’t picture who they were.
Twilight’s heart skipped a beat as she read a word. A single word. Rainbow.
Twilight’s heart raced as she read through the entry, her tongue glued to her upper lip. It was from the day of her entrance exams. She remembered that day! In fact, she cherished that memory! Why hadn’t she thought of it before? Twilight recalled what had happened. She had failed and failed and failed and failed. She had given up all hope. She had walked over to the window to gaze out over the towers. Just then, right over the towers!
Twilight suddenly screamed and flailed back, throwing herself against the pillows. She had begun to feel magic swelling up in her horn, and she wasn’t the one doing it. Twilight scrambled off of the bed, knocking over the nightstand as she did so. She hurried towards the bathroom door, almost stumbling over her hooves. But Twilight didn’t make it to the bathroom, for a bright light flooded the room, and when it cleared, she was gone.